Talk:Drunk Tank/@comment-32683598-20170725213337/@comment-24101790-20170726041541
I'm just going to copy/paste and write my refutations in response to keep everything tidy (my comments will be in bold for easy differentiation) and concise for anyone who's following this. "The reason I, and others in the comments are trying to inject reality is because YOU put it there. If you had made this about some other world where alcohol was an unknown quantity and they were dealing with this huge crisis it would be one thing. If you had made some sort of mechanical or magical twisting or our world or called this a universe not quite our own where the laws of reality are different then sure it would have been fine. But you are using real earth terms and real conditions and diseases and situations. You are injecting reality at every turn. Because this otherwise feels so real, is the reason that I have a problem with the story." I'm sorry but using that logic, no fantasy story should ever use the term gold, swords, armor, shields, or reference real world diseases (like the Black Plague or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder), and no science-fiction story should ever reference real-world technology under the auspices of 'that would be immersion breaking'. Which begs the question, how does building a world off of these events break immersion? Using that logic, the author of Who Goes There?, John W. Campbell, Jr. should never name the location where the event is taking place (Antartica) or try to explain the invasion/basis for their scientific breakthroughs (as it can logically be countered with more scientific approaches). It feels foolish that an author should have to limit themselves to events in our current world or making fantastical creations that they have to explain separately. The only situation I can see where it's necessary to do so is when they state that the events are a true/factual story and need a strong basis in realism. "in Dogscape the people and situations are real but the environment isn't. They remember earth the way it was but they are in a wholly made up environment." Wut??? How is this different from Dogscape in any way? The people/situations are 'real' (in the sense that the readers could imagine such a thing happening to recovering alcoholics, teetotalers, and expectant mothers, and not that it's actually true. Much like the characters in Dogscape are struggling to survive, despite this fantastical world they're trapped in). Literally my comment above states: "You do note that inherently this idea is flawed to begin with as no fruit/vegetable would be able to grow in the first place with the quantity set? The point is to create an interesting narrative and ask leeway on the parts that are difficult to factually quantify in a fictional world. (Emphasis on the word fictional.)" so "the people and situations are real but the environment isn't." doesn't make much sense, unless you're implying that either Dogscape or Drunk Tank is a factual world as opposed to the other which seems ludicrous.' "And the glaringly obvious answer to all of these people's problems prevents our emersion (sic). Our ability to be in the mindset of the characters. To put it bluntly...you are cockblocking the reader." How am I cockblocking the reader? I am setting a hypothetical situation using a grain of truth (the ethanol-conversion GMOs studied in the 1980's) and building a narrative around the character's perspectives (If you take umbrage with that, you seem to be out of sorts with an entire genre) and are depriving yourself of an entire facet of literature under the auspices of 'it's not scientifically/historically-proven'.) I really don't see much opportunity for breaking immersion unless the reader is the type of person who demands everything be factual and dryly explained. If that's the cause, this genre isn't the one for you as it's more based on convincing the audience to believe the fantastical (despite their knowledge that such events couldn't happen.) What's more likely, you believing a high-functioning traumatized adult, a mother driven mad by loss, an alcoholic who's fallen off the wagon, a teenager who's regressed to the mindset of a child, and a dog would figure out how to properly remove the alcohol from a substance, or that people trapped in a situation would try to accommodate their new life and fail due to their circumstances? "As an aside this will be my last comment on this. If what I have said so far doesn't make sense to you then nothing else I say will. I will of course read any replies. But like a black jack player I think I will stand with the cards I have." That's fine, it seems like you're playing with two aces and are treating it like Blackjack. Your operation under the assumption that this world has to be scientifically viable/sustainable despite the fact that no one has explicitly stated that this could happen/will happen seems ridiculous given the genre of stories. The idea that our base desires can result in these issues/this degradation is where the true horror lies in the story and to demand that it adhere to reality seems like it would only bog down the concept.